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Think it in the other way.
Where RedHat would be if Linux wasn't free...
The matter with free software is that it can be a viable business model to serve both corporations and indivinduals. It's as stupid to see Linux without companies as to see it without indivinduals since it's very nature is to be adapted by everyone who's willing to.

Judging by the pace at which Airlie is attacking this hybrid graphics support, perhaps it will be done tomorrow?

lol. Indeed. I wouldn't be surprised by now.

I hope we will also see this one day in normal computers. Deep sleep is also okay, but if it needs special HW conditions for a poweroff... hopefully we'll have better support in coming mainboards/chipsets.

Killer feature detected

If we should be able to switch GPUs online without restarting X, this would enable Linux-Systems to impress (Windows needs special drivers because it can not run multiple GPU-drivers, we can).

Being able to do this on every system that has multiple GPUs would be a killer feature, because a lot of systems at all have IGPs and desktop systems with dedicated graphic cards could use this to save energie.

Being able to do this on every system that has multiple GPUs would be a killer feature, because a lot of systems at all have IGPs and desktop systems with dedicated graphic cards could use this to save energie.

How? No one wants to unplug the monitor's cable all the time in order to switch from the external graphics card's VGA/DVI port to the IGP's one. That would be just dumb

If we should be able to switch GPUs online without restarting X, this would enable Linux-Systems to impress (Windows needs special drivers because it can not run multiple GPU-drivers, we can).

Being able to do this on every system that has multiple GPUs would be a killer feature, because a lot of systems at all have IGPs and desktop systems with dedicated graphic cards could use this to save energie.

I agree. Switching GPUs while X is running would be quite a feat, but it's also probably a very difficult feat to achieve. You'd have to get every running 3D program migrated over, which might not be possible (e.g. if you were running an OpenGL 3.x application and then switched back to integrated graphics with less capabilities).

That being said, I just wanted to point out that while Windows Vista could only support video drivers from one company running at a time on a given system, Windows 7 has the ability to run drivers for multiple brands of cards simultaneously. This ability was also (I think) introduced to Vista in Oct 2009 (via the Vista Platform Update). Basically, if your windows computer is running WDDM 1.0 (original vista), you can only run one video driver at a time, if you have WDDM 1.1 (Windows 7, and possibly updated Vista), you can run multiple.

How? No one wants to unplug the monitor's cable all the time in order to switch from the external graphics card's VGA/DVI port to the IGP's one. That would be just dumb

I could see a really kludgy workaround where you use a monitor with multiple inputs that auto-senses when its current input disappears and switches to an alternate active input... It's a horrible workaround, but it'd function. And it would completely reintroduce the flicker problem that KMS just solved.

My monitor does have DVI and VGA and automatically detects if one goes dead and switches to the other. Problem is, it's not an acceptable solution: I want digital output all the time, not an analog VGA signal.

Systems with switchable graphics either (a) include built-in multiplexers to switch the video output connectors from one GPU to the other, or (b) always display from the IGP and copy screen data from the discrete GPU when drawing on the big iron. I don't think you have to move video cables. I hope